I knew I was a geek by the time I was in third grade. We were learning division in math. I had mastered multiplication, and I figured I should be able to pick up anything right away, but this new concept was being entirely lost on me.
Peter, my third-grade crush who sat next to me, was intent on making these ridiculous erasers go flying across the classroom, just behind Mrs. Werb's turned back, so that everyone would laugh while she was writing on the board.
I wanted to giggle like everyone else, but I was getting annoyed and frustrated. Why was everyone just ignoring Mrs. Werb and the lesson? Did they all get it right away, and so now they could just concentrate on making fun while I was sitting here getting so angry that tears were welling up in my eyes? What was going on?
I gave Peter a dirty look, which he conveniently ignored, and just then one of the offending erasers grazed Mrs. Werb's right ear. "That's enough, now. I know this is difficult, but you need to listen. I'll give you a worksheet to work on," she said, calmly.
Worksheet? I thought. What on earth was I going to do? When she set the sheet on my desk, I looked the problems over as I always did, and I honestly felt I was reading a foreign language. Relax, I thought, they are still numbers, right? This is just a new way of dealing with them.
Needless to say, within two minutes I was running for the bathroom because I couldn't hold back the flow of tears. Once I got in the bathroom stall, I let it loose, and I didn't even care who heard me. I was sobbing, bawling, snot pouring from my nose, a third-grader acting like a kindergartner, and I did not care.
"Nicole, are you in here," Mrs. Werb called in the door.
"Yeeeesss," I sobbed into the shredded piece of toilet paper in my hand.
"What's wrong?" she said, smiling kindly at me.
"I, uh, I, um, I don't get it!" I shouted through a fresh surge of tears. "I can't do that, it's too hard, and everyone else gets it but me."
Looking back, I think she must have repressed the urge to laugh out loud. "Nicole, no one else gets it either. They just don't care. You just care a lot more than they do," she said. "Don't worry, I bet you'll have it all figured out by tomorrow. Don't be so hard on yourself. You are here to learn, not to be perfect."
I was stunned. It never occurred to me to be anything other than perfect in school. It also had never crossed my mind that anyone would think differently than me. I figured they all had a secret, a secret about long division that no one was going to share with me, and that I'd better just give up and die now, because this was the final evidence that I wasn't as smart as I wanted to be.
I took a deep breath, a long drink of water, and headed back to class with Mrs. Werb's hand on my shoulder.
And I didn't care who heard me crying in the bathroom. I knew I'd figure out that horrible long division before the day was over. And then, they'd all want to copy my paper.
And I would not let them.
